The final judgments are in and The Tournament of Books winner has been crowned. It was a close match, 11-6, and my vote ended up going to the winner. Go check it out. (And read both of these books, they’re great.)
And the Winner Is…
Why We Need More Winners like Alice Munro
American writers need to recognize Munro’s win for what it really is -- it’s a win for writers the world over who’ve long had to deal with more substantial dismissals than we have.
Jonathan Lethem wins MacArthur Genius Grant
It’ll be in tomorrow’s papers and on most Web sites tonight at midnight but a couple of foreign papers have posted their stories early: Jonathan Lethem has been awarded a genius grant worth $500,000. I’ll update this post tomorrow with more details once all the winners are officially announced.Update: Well. Not much to report. Usually there’s three or four literary-related Macarthur Fellows, but this year there are just two, Terry Belanger, a rare book preservationist from the University of Virginia, and Lethem. Here’s the only Lethem quote about his windfall that I could find so far (from the NY Daily News): “‘You probably ought to check in with me in six months,’ he said. ‘I think I can safely say it’s going to give me a lot of the security and freedom that any artist craves.'” I’m sure that he will be compelled to discuss his plans at length sooner than that, and I’m sure other folks will be weighing in on the meaning of this honor for Lethem soon enough, as well.
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The Booker’s Dozen: The 2016 Booker Longlist
In the third year that the Booker Prize has been open to U.S. authors, five American authors again make the longlist, including National Book Critics Circle Award-winner Paul Beatty. Double winner J.M. Coetzee is the lone former winner on the list, while Elizabeth Strout is the most celebrated American to be tapped. Other notable names include A.L. Kennedy and David Means, and four debut novels made the list.
All the Booker Prize longlisters are below (with bonus links where available):
The Sellout by Paul Beatty (The Inanity of American Plutocracy: On Paul Beatty’s The Sellout)
The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
Serious Sweet by A.L. Kennedy
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
The North Water by Ian McGuire
Hystopia by David Means
The Many by Wyl Menmuir
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh (Ottessa Moshfegh’s Year in Reading)
Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves
My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (Elizabeth Strout’s Year in Reading, A Millions Top Ten book)
All That Man Is by David Szalay
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
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2008 National Book Award Finalists Announced
Award season is hitting a its stride, and this year’s National Book Award finalists have been announced. Looking at our speculative post of a couple weeks ago, we pegged Marilynne Robinson and Aleksandar Hemon as likely fiction finalists (kudos to Garth on guessing both). Joining them is 81-year-old Peter Matthiessen for a book that, as the AP notes, is “an 890-page revision of a trilogy of novels he released in the 1990s.” The other two fiction finalists, meanwhile, are somewhat more obscure. Not making the fiction cut are notable writers like Philip Roth, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Geraldine Brooks. Here’s a list of the finalists in all four categories with bonus links and excerpts where available:Fiction:Home by Marilynne Robinson (excerpt, a most anticipated book)The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon (excerpt)Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner (excerptShadow Country by Peter Matthiessen (excerpt)The End by Salvatore Scibona (excerpt)Nonfiction:This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust (excerpt)The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed (excerpt)The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer (excerpt)Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives by Jim Sheeler (excerpt)The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order by Joan Wickersham (excerpt)Poetry:Watching the Spring Festival by Frank Bidart (in The Quarterly Conversation)Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems by Mark Doty (poem)Creatures of a Day by Reginald Gibbons (poem)Without Saying by Richard Howard (poem)Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith (recordings)Young People’s Literature:Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (excerpt)The Underneath by Kathi Appelt (excerpt)What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy BlundellThe Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart (excerpt)The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp (excerpt)